During a HQ USAFE mission on June 17, 1949, the US Air Force found an "anomaly" -- or unusual structure -- on Mount Agri (Mt Ararat) in Turkey. The matter was passed to the CIA, who sent U2 and SR-71 spyplanes to get a better look. They named it The Ararat Anomaly. The CIA then commissioned imaging from CORONA and Keyhole-series photoreconnaissance systems (spy satellites).

This particular location on Agri is known colloquially as Noah's Ark; the site has been known as this for millenia. Except nobody has managed to point a decent camera at it - except the CIA of course.

Astronaut James B. Irwin, who was an SR-71 pilot, and who, after "intensive geological training" in 1971 became the 8th person in history to walk on the moon (in the process, co-discovering the Genesis Rock), resigned from NASA and the USAF on July 1, 1972 and soon after founded the High Flight Foundation, which funded six expeditions to Mt Ararat by Irwin. The Colonel died of a heart attack in Glenwood Springs, Colorado USA on August 8, 1991, aged 61. On his last journey to Ararat, he had been detained on allegations of espionage by Turkish authorities.

The Anomaly is located at "approximately 39 42' 10" N 044 16' 30" E at an elevation of approximately 14-16000' and approximately 2.2 KM horizontal distance West of the summit". (ref: DIA U-944/SVI-FOIA)&nbsp Mt Ararat itself is located at 39.70 N, 44.28 E. (These numbers may come in handy when using satellite imagery databases)

The American Government has never announced the possibility of an artificial structure on the mountain. Rather, over two years of lobbying by Mr Porcher L. Taylor III eventually extracted from the Defense Intelligence Agency under Freedom Of Information Act request 95-007122, on March 14 1995, a single image, Frame 2 from the original set of Air Force photos.

On July 24, 1995, Mr Taylor extracted from the Defense Intelligence Agency under another Freedom Of Information Act request, Frame 23, and also "a formal composite evaluation by a DIA photo interpreter ... including a monoscopic enlargement ... and three anaglyphic stereo enlargements", and on October 10, 1995, Mr Taylor extracted from the Defense Intelligence Agency under another Freedom Of Information Act request, Frames 4, 5 and 6. (ref: Taylor, 1996)

However, the contents of the photos are now irrelevant. That the matter was passed to the CIA for further investigation means that the anomaly was interesting. That they named it, and went back for another look, means that the anomaly was very interesting indeed. That they are still keeping secrets means that there is something there to hide. This is it:

This one is a contrast-enhanced enlargement of what appears to be Frame 2 from the USAF:

After much zooming, squinting etc., I think I can say two things; 1) nothing in any of the images is clear, and 2) there is, however, a long flat-ish ridge, smack in the middle of the contrast-enhanced enlargement. It's massive... there is no need to zoom on the above image, it's literally visible a mile away. Until now I had been looking for a small speck of something poking out of the snow.

The other USAF images are focusing on the left-hand end of the ridge.

A PDF containing some images has turned up here. Unfortunately, it's damaged. If you have trouble opening the PDF (most folks do), right-click on the link and then choose Save Link As. Then, double-click on the file once it has downloaded. To extract each image to a separate file, open the PDF in PhotoShop and click File.. Automate.. Multipage PDF to PSD. Ensure you choose a high resolution.

The six images I was able to recover are legitimate-looking USAF-style photos, each with some information obscured. Here's image 1, extracted at 300 DPI. I suspect this is frame 2 from the original 1949 set. Note: it's a 2.5Mb compressed TIFF. Also, here is image 5 from the PDF, extracted at 450 DPI. This one is nearly 5Mb.

A gallery containing all six images in high-resolution TIFFs is now online!

This image, which was created by me for the purposes of comparison, shows the anomalous shape, which could be typified as a long dark ridge, inside the coloured ellipse.

Note the inset at bottom-right. It circles only the left-hand end of the anomalous shape, and it is cropped, which takes it out of context.

I have superimposed the yellow ellipse to highlight the misleading nature of the lower-right image.

The lower-right image was previously the best version of Frame 2 I could find anywhere on the web.

frame 2 revisited

Photos of the Mt Agri site were taken by CORONA spy satellites in the sixties. These were declassified by Executive Order 12951 on February 22, 1995; they were unveiled two days later at CIA headquarters by Vice President Al Gore. (ref: Taylor, 1996)

Hundreds of thousands of CORONA images, and others from Argon, Lanyard and KH (Keyhole) series satellites now lie archived at NARA. Here are threerecords of interest. Porcher Taylor has reportedly seen six of these declassified CORONA images, saying they were "not much to look at" (ref: B.J. Corbin, 1997)

More images, from KH-9 and KH-11 spy satellites, commissioned in the 1970's during the era of Dr. George A. Carver, Jr. (deceased), were the subject of FOIA request F97-0933, and on May 2, 1997 the CIA responded:

"...we located records which appeared to be responsive to that request, but determined that they had to be denied in their entirety..." as they are "...classified pursuant to an Executive order in the interest of national defense or foreign policy..." and to "...protect from disclosure intelligence sources and method... in accord with the National Security Act of 1947 and the CIA Act of 1949." (ref: CIA F97-0933)

A CIA official, who has seen satellite photos from 1973, and who declined to be named, spoke of three exposed "beams": "...they sort of curved over and formed up what would have been the bow of something or other poking out of the ice", he said. (ref: Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, November 18, 1997)

A CIA official, Dr. George A. Carver, Jr. (deceased), said in a news conference that there were "clear indications that there was something up on Mt. Ararat". (ref: Taylor, 1996)

Mount Ararat has been closed by the Turkish Government since 1991, when five archaeologists near the mountain were kidnapped. Perhaps theyneededmoremaps. The CIA's World Factbook left Mt Ararat off the map until late 2002.

Here's fivemorearticlesaboutit - although it's old news to the Reagans. Since the discovery of this document on the Reagan's website, it's been removed - fortunately there is a record of it here.

Here's a curiousdocument from TASS, the Soviet equivalent of CNN, alluding to some "unique" photos of "anomalies". (ref: CIA 1997)

...and here's another image of the anomaly, taken by the Turkish Air Force in September 1987. Taylor cannot explain why this image did not create a fuss; instead he says they "apparently overlooked it" (despite the fact that we have the photo).

In August 1999, the Governor of the Turkish "Emergency Region" - in which Ararat is located - died of a heart attack, aged 46. Aydin Arslan was reportedly suffering asthma whilst being transported by plane "to Ankara" when he died "suddenly". (BBC World Service, 1999)&nbsp fulltext

Was this the same Dr. Ahmet Ali Arslan, described by Porcher Taylor as "a Turkish educator and considered the dean of all climbers of Mt. Ararat with over 50 climbs"? The two met at the annual American-Turkish Council's conference in Washington, D.C. in January 1995. (Taylor, 1996) The same Dr. Ahmet Ali Arslan who "is convinced that the Ark is hidden away"? Falling victim to asthma at age 46?

Time has passed since this story first started circulating. There has been no big deal made of a giant log on a mountain in Turkey. But, images have been released to NARA (update 2006: they may have since beenwithdrawn). To me, this suggests that the US government is fulfilling its obligation to release the information into the public domain. However, the obligation does not include highlighting or drawing attention to any particular item of that information. Which means, if we want to find our images, we have to sift through the lot of them ourselves.

Some other websites on this topic take the view that the US military has a right to keep or obscure such a secret, that doing so is vital to the protection of sources and methods, blah blah blah. This website does not support that view. If they found something on the mountain then they should announce it. There is no reason to keep it secret - except to get more power and make more money, of course.

The only time people keep secrets is when it suits them. There will never be a good time to admit to your own people that you have been lying to them for over 50 years about the true Nature of the Beast. But one thing is sure: the longer the secret is kept, the More Pissed Off the people will be, when they finally figure it out.

Some other websites have even decided that since the US military is being unco-operative, they will go to Mr Ararat and look for themselves. I think that while well-intentioned, this notion is quaint. If the US military does not want to play ball, you can be sure no ball is going to be played. Indeed, one such researcher, Mr Jim Hall, nearly died whilst attempting such (ref: B.J. Corbin, 1998). This website is more focused upon why no ball has been played already, and on facilitating any necessary legal or regulatory steps that need be taken to play it. After all, the US military has probably done a excellent job documenting many aspects of the Anomaly, which will be invaluable to the wider scientific community. Expeditions, measurements, artifacts - it has all very probably been done already.

But asking us to play guessing games ("numerous people have asked for Noah's Ark, but nobody has asked for the Ararat Anomaly" -- Robert Richardson, Chief of DIA's FOIA staff (ref: Taylor, 1996)) or sift through millions of images is wasting our time. The military is not paid to make brain teasers. They are paid to serve their country. Keeping this quiet is counterproductive and in the long term will work against the country the military claim to serve.

No, the information they are keeping is not theirs to keep, and they are milking their inside knowledge for profit.

What gets me the most is that I've seen this obfuscatory pattern of behaviour before. Consequently, I conclude that -